I read in various fandoms, but Buffy is the only one that simply, seriously, solidly hooked me, so that’s what I have to work with. And, since that happened fifteen years ago, I’m dealing as much with speculation as with memory.

To some extent, two stories I’ve already named served the gateway function: “Not Even Jimmy Olsen” and “One Morning in Sunnydale”. I think they came later, though. They showed me just how good fanfiction could be; before that, however — I think — there was something that gave me my first glimmering of what fanfic could offer.

It wasn’t a single story, in fact, but an actual series, under the name of “Alone, Together”. More than its share of clichés (including some internal fanon that turned out to be thoroughly unjustified by the development of BtVS itself), and schmoop, and bathos, and other things generally not seen as hallmarks of great literature. It caught my imagination, though, and sort of pre-seasoned it for the greater quality fic I would shortly encounter, and MAY be the reason I kept reading long enough to get to the better stuff.

There’s no specific link for the series itself, so I’m listing the individual stories. This is more a citation than a recommendation, but follow it out or not as you prefer: